Where persuasion fails to achieve the desired result, wielding the stick can sometimes work wonders.
This was the case the other day when a team of officials of Oulgaret Municipality found no response from truck owners who had parked the vehicles on the side of the arterial 45 feet road causing obstruction to flow of traffic. On Saturday, Municipality Commissioner M.S. Ramesh visited the spot in connection with a Swach Bharat drive to find that the truck operators had failed to heed instructions to remove the parked trucks.
He directed the sanitary workers to collect the garbage in the vicinity and dump them into the trucks .
The truck ownersrushed to the spot and got into heated arguments with the municipal officials.
But the Commissioner stuck to his guns and pointed out that he had been asking them to take away the lorries.
The truck owners removed the vehicles hurriedly after the authorities warned them that the vehicles would be impounded.
Late comers
Going by some of the programmes organised by the government departments, it would seem that the Chief Minister and the ministers are in competition about who takes the maximum amount of time to reach a venue. At a recent programme organised by the Labour Department which was to begin at 9.30 a.m., the minister only reached the venue at around 11.45 a.m., and kept everyone waiting. The organisers said he was caught up in another programme and hence was delayed. It is not uncommon for media persons to discuss how long they have waited for the Chief Minister and ministers to turn up at such events. After the announcement by the organisers, a reporter quipped that thus far the record goes to the Chief Minister for having kept the audience waiting for more than 5 hours.
On time
In recent times, Chief Minister appears to be putting his notoriety for turning up late at public programmes behind him.
So when a public function was organised to distribute the enhanced amount of pension to the old aged persons, widows and disabled persons, the Chief Minister turned up on time, perhaps catching some his Cabinet colleagues on the wrong foot.
Speaker V. Sabapathy, Local Administration Minister N.G.Pannirselvam and Education Minister T.Thiagarajan were late to the venue.
Political faux pas
Some Government actions give the appearance of being impromptu stuff rather than the outcome of a carefully thought through decision.
One such hastily put together event was the function on Sunday where Chief Minister N. Rangasamy launched distribution of free rice through the PDS.
Perhaps, it was the haste with which the programme was organised that led to a faux pas---where the rice bags bore a smiling image of the Chief Minister along with one of his one-time bête noire the former Lt. Governor Virendra Kataria.
It is no secret that Mr. Rangasamy and Mr. Kataria were at loggerheads over several decisions. In fact, the bitter ties between the two Constitutional authorities is even believed to have led to an impasse in administration.
It was only after the gaffe was pointed out that officials discarded the gunny bags and asked card-holders to bring their own bags.
As for the Chief Minister, he just shrugged his shoulders and walked away after launching the PDS rice scheme.
S. Prasad, Annie Philip, R. Sivaraman, M. Dinesh Varma
